The Forms of Water - Tapa blanda

"Barrett's fine and distinctive novel....is quietly but powerfully moving" Sunday Times

"A fascinating, moving story" Independent on Sunday

"Barrett poses subtle, important questions about what families can and cannot offer today. Her enquiry into the subjects of middle-class identity....stand out for their relative rarity in contemporary fiction" TLS

‘If any group of mortals knows how it feels to be expelled from paradise, it’s the Auberon clan, the appealingly wretched family in this novel... Barrett nicely details the quiet agonies of people who have fallen from grace through bad luck and worse judgement, and suggests that if you can’t regain paradise, you can at least make peace with its loss.’ New York Times

‘Barrett is a skilful writer. She moves smoothly among the many consciousnesses that inhabit her book, giving us... clearly defined and differentiated personalities and voices... this winning novel is not merely the story of a family divided over its inheritance; there is far more of Genesis than of King Lear in its pages...’ Washington Post

‘Barrett returns with her speciality – a story about the tangled web of a family told in prose that’s spun smooth as silk... The strength this time around lies in Barrett’s fine writing and the haunting power of the water, rising to fill that reservoir. It was a real event, but like the best of fiction writers, Barrett makes it more than real.’ Kirkus Reviews

Set in New England, The Forms of Water is a superb exploration of the complexities of family life, grief and the ties that continue to bind us to the past.

At the age of 80, Brendan Auberon, a former monk, is now confined to a wheelchair in a nursing home. As a last wish, he is desperate to catch a final glimpse of the 200 acres of woodland on which once stood his parental home. Half a century ago, the owners of the land were evicted from their homes and the land was flooded to create a reservoir which would provide water for the big city.

The Forms of Water is the story of what happens when Brendan convinces his staid nephew Henry to hijack the nursing home van to make this ancestral visit. What begins as a joke, becomes infinitely more complex as the family roles begin to rearrange themselves.

A rich and absorbing look at the complexities of family life, at grief and at the ties that continue to bind us to the past.